Charlie Brown

Cartoon Character

Born: 1947

Birthplace:

Best known as: Wishy-washy hero of the comic strip Peanuts

Charlie Brown is the wishy-washy child hero of the newspaper comic strip Peanuts. Charlie Brown is a lovable loser who dreams of hitting the game-winning home run but usually strikes out. He first appeared in Li'l Folks, a comic feature by Charles Schulz, which debuted in the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1947. In 1950 a new version of Schulz's strip was syndicated as Peanuts. For the next 50 years, Charlie Brown and his nutty beagle Snoopy appeared in newspapers around the world. As the popularity of the strip soared in the 1960s, the Peanuts gang also appeared in books, TV specials, and even an in off-Broadway play titled You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. One Peanuts book, Happiness Is a Warm Puppy, was the #1 best-selling nonfiction book in America in 1963. The TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas, which first aired on December 9, 1965, became a holiday classic and continues to be broadcast on American TV decades later. A few of Charlie Brown's traits became particularly famous: his phrase of dismay, "Good grief!"; his unrequited love for the unseen little red-haired girl; his philosophical discussions with his blanket-carrying chum, Linus; and his annual (failed) attempts to kick a football held by Linus's sneaky sister Lucy. Charles Schulz drew Peanuts right up until his own death in 2000; since that time the strip has continued in reruns in hundreds of newspapers. Charlie Brown and the gang reappeared in a 2015 animated feature film, The Peanuts Movie.

Extra credit:

Charlie Brown’s younger sister is named Sally… His father is a barber, as was Schulz’s real-life father… Charlie Brown was played by Gary Burghoff in the original 1967 off-Broadway cast of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown… Charles Schulz named Charlie Brown after a friend he met at an art class in Minneapolis, although he said that Charlie Brown’s character traits were not based on his old friend… Charlie Brown and Snoopy were the name of the command module and the lunar module on Apollo 10, the final test flight before Apollo 11 put Neil Armstrong on the moon.